Multiunit organization and multimarket strategy: the dynamics of market entry and commitment

Recent work on multiunit-multimarket (MUMM) firms has shown that the market entry behavior of these firms is influenced by learning processes and by opportunities for reduced competition with firms that have a high degree of multimarket contact. There is still uncertainty as to the prominence of these motives in guiding entry behavior, and the important implications for market competition and antitrust enforcement calls for further research on this theme. We review work on the way MUMM firms determine market entry and product innovation, and present some results on the patenting behavior of large Japanese shipbuilding firms. The findings suggest that firms are more likely to take out patents if their multimarket overlap with other firms in the market is high.